Sandalwood Death: A Novel (Chinese Literature Today Book Series)

that bring to life emperors and kings, generals and ministers that through history abide. In my middle years I offended the County Magistrate, who then plucked out my beard though his identity he did hide. My acting days ended, I relinquished my troupe to make a living selling tea, in my native home to reside. Little Peach, who bore me a son and a daughter, was a loving and dutiful wife, true and tried. But loathsome foreign devils invaded our land to build a railroad and savage our feng shui. A traitorous bully made off with my darling children while others made sport in the square with my wife, whose calamitous results cannot be denied. I have wept sobbed cried wailed myself sick~~from hatred loathing abhorrence repulsion my heart has died~~”
    Justice Cat intoned his tragic song with fervor, rising and falling like a stormy sea, while arrayed behind him was a cohort of armed cat actors whose outrage spilled over into the audience, triggering a reaction of meow calls and angry foot stomping, rocking the Academy grounds and raising clouds of dust. My unease rose with it, as an inauspicious cloud gradually enshrouded the site. Liu Pu insistently whispered a warning into my ear, sending chills up and down my spine. Yet I felt helpless in the face of the incendiary mood among the actors and their spellbound audience; it was like trying to rein in a runaway horse with one hand, or to put out a raging fire with a ladle. Things had reached the point where I could trust only to Providence, give the proverbial horse free rein.
    I retreated to a spot in front of the shed to watch with detachment. Up on the Ascension Platform, Zhao Jia was standing to one side of the protective cage, quietly watching with a sandalwood peg in his hand. Sun Bing’s moans were drowned out by the clamor below the stage, but I knew that he was still alive and as well as could be expected, that his spirit was as high as ever. A popular legend has it that if a Gaomi resident who is on the verge of dying while away from home hears the strains of Maoqiang opera outside his door, he will leap bright-eyed out of his deathbed. Sun Bing, though you have been subjected to a punishment worse than death, seeing this performance and listening to these arias—for your benefit—is surely the opportunity of a lifetime. I turned my gaze to the crowd, searching for the idiot son of the Zhao family, and I found him, saw him sitting atop one of the opera stage posts, adding his calls of meow to those of the crowd. Slowly he slid down the post, but as soon as his feet hit the ground, he shinnied back up, cat-like. I then searched for Meiniang of the Sun family, and I found her, saw her, her hair in disarray as she beat on the back of a yayi with a stick. When this revelry would end, I could not say, but as I looked into the sky to check the time, I saw that a dark cloud had blotted out the sun.
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    8
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    Twenty or more armed German soldiers emerged from the encampment on the Academy grounds. Oh, no! A silent cry escaped from my mouth. This was going to end badly. I rushed up to stop their advance, placing myself directly in front of a junior officer armed with a pistol, eager to clarify the situation to him. Worthy . . . officer, that’s what I’ll call you, you bastard. Well, the worthy officer, whose eyes were the color of green onions, said something I couldn’t understand and shoved me out of his way.
    The soldiers quick-stepped up to the Ascension Platform and stomped heavily up the wooden ramp, which bent under weight it was never intended to sustain; the platform began to sway. “Stop,” I shouted to the actors on the opera stage and the viewers beneath it. “Stop—Stop—” But my voice was too weak to carry, like throwing a cotton ball at a stone wall.
    The soldiers lined up in tight ranks and fixed their eyes on the opera stage, where a fierce battle was being played out. Actors in the roles of cats were trading blows with actors dressed up as tigers and wolves. Justice Cat, seated in the center of the stage, was providing the musical accompaniment to the action in a powerful voice that seemed to reach the sky. This was yet another unique characteristic of Maoqiang opera: sung arias accompanying fighting scenes, from start to finish, their contents often bearing no relevance to the action; as a result, staged fights in the context of an opera actually served as a background for the talents of a principal singer.
    Ai yo,